


Dissonance

by AkumaStrife



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Implied Rovinsky, Implied ronsey, M/M, bad decisions in the desert, ronan struggling with his place in life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 19:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14858562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkumaStrife/pseuds/AkumaStrife
Summary: Sometimes the violence, the anger, the itch for something he can't name, is too much, and Ronan seeks out chaos greater than the stuff inside him, if only to release it vicariously through watching K's gang live freer than he himself ever will.





	Dissonance

It’s a glorious fucking _nightmare._ Kavinsky’s parties always are, but this isn’t a party—it’s not for Aglionby—this is Kavinsky and his dogs tearing themselves apart and spitting in the face of God. They don’t have a god, unless Ronan counts Kavinksy himself, sprawled proud on the hood of the white mitsubishi, hand curled taunting around the back of Ronan’s neck. He holds Ronan in place, and while Ronan squirms somewhere deep inside himself, he stands still and breathes shallow and hates how grateful he is for it.

The rest of them are a blur backlit by bonfires and fireworks exploding the wrong way, pressed in on all sides by the endless night, by the empty lot sprawling and seeming to swallow them.

There’s cars parked haphazard into a loose circle like sentries, a perimeter. Bottles of shimmering liquid in one hand and hellish amalgamation of fireworks in the other, pills and drugs spilling out of pockets; sharp maws open in hyena cackles.

Kavinsky’s crew is always compared to a wolf pack by the town, but they’re hardly so distinguished, even if they hunt in formation like they are. No, they’re coyotes at best: crude and cutting, lawless, rolling in dust and filth and dragging each other down; barking obscenities and crass threats and promises through the darkness as they seem to dance around each other, veins full of drugs and furious passion and the heavy music that spills from each vehicle’s open door.

Several feet over Jiang and Prokopenko wrestle rougher than it is friendly, Jiang calculating while Prokopenko is all loose limbs and brutal unpredictability. Both laugh, Jiang throwing an arm around Proko’s neck in a headlock that Proko tears free of so he can hurtle into Jiang’s stomach to knock him down. They’re laughing, but it’s with eyes blown wide and teeth bared, snarling.

Skov and Swan fight in their own way—fire somehow spilling from Swan’s right hand with Skov’s teeth at his throat, chin arched sharply back. They’re a tangle of wandering hands, sparklers that never go out, a joint that acts the same, and enough skin bared to be a curse hurled into the cosmos.

Everything is brutally fast, blurring around the edges and moving through Ronan like he’s fucking wasted, and yet it’s muffled too, pressing in and close and just missing him, swirling around him as eels. It’s dangerous and addicting; it’s a mess spilling out of their bubble into the rest of the world.

Ronan doesn’t know how long he’s been standing here, swaying slightly under Kavinsky’s hand (his thumb rubbing mockingly soft up the side of his throat) taking it in, letting it bank the itch for violence and self-hatred under his skin, crawling to get out, urging him to break something (glass, his car, his bones, Kavinsky’s bones.)

Prokopenko hurls something into one of the bonfire and it cracks and jumps, flames licking up green and for a moment black as tar. Swan laughs and whoops as Skov grins and presses close and then rips himself away, taunting, a dare, prompting Swan to lurch forward and give chase. Proko joins in, coming from the side to help take Skov down and getting a prize in the form of a bite to his mouth that draws blood and his back pushed into the packed dirt.

Chaos and ever-shifting energies and movement.

Ronan can’t remember the last time he saw them sober, can’t remember if Kavinsky’s had them hooked on his drugs since the beginning, or if they’d always been friends before he found the drugs at his fingertips

Swan pushes himself up, using Proko as a crutch and laughing sharp at the pained yelp Proko gives.

At his side, Kavinsky laughs, soft, gentle as a paper cut.

Violence ripples down Swan’s arms and he stalks over to the scrap metal pile to do some unholy damage Ronan envies.

Skov watches him go like he wants to be the hubcap Swan tears free from under the pile.

It all makes something itch in Ronan’s chests, twisting restless and hungry, wildly self-destructive until he’s fidgeting in place, gasping at Kavinsky’s hand clamping down.

Another bonfire pops and crackles, spits coals at him and glances off his boot.

It makes him think of Gansey On Fire—his pulse jumps, stomach folding and clenching in on itself.

It makes him think of Gansey at home now, no doubt sitting sleepless in the middle of his miniature Henrietta, his own sort of God.

It makes him think of Gansey sitting there, hair ruffled and in a hideous, too large sweater because he’s ninty-fucking-years-old, his glasses slipping down his nose as his sleeve slips down over his wide hands, fingers long and delicate enough to build tiny stop signs and fences.

Gansey who’s soft, not like Kavinsky’s vicious promises can be as soft as a snake in the grass.

Ronan breathes, blinks, pulls all his edges and spikes back into his body until he’s suddenly and overwhelming _aware_ of where he is and how the lot is a cataclysmic orchestra.

It’s too much.

He pulls free and grabs his jacket from where it’s draped over Kavinsky’s skinned knee, and turns for the BMW (waiting, lurking in the darkness, reproachful.) He blocks out the jeers and the catcalls, the whistles, Kavinsky’s own biting innuendoes meant to needle him where it’s festering.

He thinks of Gansey quiet and the dusty glow of the shitty lamps in Monmouth, the vaulted rafters as dark and endless and crushing as the night sky is here.

He thinks of Gansey’s soft hands, paper dry, Gansey’s hand on the back of his neck where Kavinsky’s had been, but scratching up soothingly over his scalp.

He goes home.


End file.
